Just fitted a well used 5m pair with Naim plugs both ends between 5si and neat sx3. Compared to the atlas hyper before it , it sounds shut in , bass drive is great but lacks airiness …, is this one of it’s traits? I’ve had to coil under rack but big untidy loops rather than tight coils
I’d have said that the NAC A5 is the superior of the two
Perhaps you’re hearing more bass control?
Stick with it for now and you may realise
I find quite a number of cables unnaturally bright compared to NACA5. It maybe just what you’ve become used to. Stick with it a while and realign yourself and you’ll find it’s a great cable.
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For sure other no Naim chains and Naim chains with other cable other than the NACA5 do show an overall better front to back performance ,airier and more 3D.
But treble airness doesn’t make me think it’s due to the cable.
I’ll deffo stick with it… is it worth re terminating as they speaker ends of a small section of the copper between insulation and soldered pin is tarnished . Just to add the scource I’d nd5xs2 with highline.
I would. It’ll mean new SA8 speaker connectors though, unless you’re really, really good with de-soldering and removing the old solder.
Thanks Richard - Luckily I have a pair that came with the amp… I may chop off a metre also (4m remains ) to make it easier to hide!.
Blow torch at the ready then!
The general view is that 5.5m is what you want to see as a minimum in terms of sound quality, so if you can live with it at 5m, I wouldn’t chop much off.
I’d agree - don’t make any shorter than you absolutely have to.
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Ok noted thanks 
Absolutely, new SA8 plugs and good soldering will transform NAC A5 to a point where you simply won’t question it’s ability. I mean, sit back and expect a lot of ankle ache from excessive foot tapping. 
Well i certainly think the nac a5 cable works best with the older range off naim gear, i also found it a bit dull and lacking in detail, compared to say the naim SL cable or other more modern and much cheaper cables.
But it can work well if you are trying to tame an over bright system or a bass light speaker, but i feel if you have a nice balanced system thats very revealing then nac a5 will hamper it, well thats what i found with it anyway
I’ll get my dealer to return terminate when life returns to normal and see how it goes… still got the atlas hyper 3 to compare…
Thanks all, some good responses
Do not coil the naca5. This does have a negative affect. Also, what else in reference to cables is running under your rack? Any signal or power cables? It could be a cable dressing issue which is easily sorted.
Scott
hi - nothing else under the rack all power ans hiline well away. the coils are big, loose and spread out underneath. when the lounge is free from feeling like an office/ college ill lay them put to see what effect that has on top end sparkle
This isn’t the easiest thing to experiment with at home (you can’t undo the short runs!). That said, when I first got a Naim amp (a Nait XS) I wasn’t aware of the recommendation and got a 3m pair of NACA5. Couple of years later I needed a longer run and got a 5.5m pair. It might be my imagination, but it sounded a bit less mechanical and more natural. Really subtle, and could also be the difference between using gold bananas in the first shorter run vs. Naim plugs in the longer one.
All that said, I understand there was lots of experimentation on this at the factory back in the day, so there is a quasi-official recommendation to get 5.5m+. @Richard.Dane could probably tell you more.
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Yes, I’ve written a few posts about this in the past. Rather than rely on ever more unreliable memory, I’ll see if I can find any of them.
To close this one off , my local dealer ( basically sound) has re terminated with naim plugs and bananas at spkr end. What a difference! Thanks all and to Tony @basically sound
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A happy ending so it would seem.
What’s your conclusions in terms of changes to the system overall?
You may have covered this further back in the thread, but what have you terminated with at the speaker end and what length is your A5?
I’d also be interested to know if you are using any speaker jumpers if bi/tri wire type terminals on speakers, I’ve got banana plug + spade A5 tails I had made up for example.